Requiem

Not under foreign skiesNor under foreign wings protected -I shared all this with my own peopleThere, where misfortune had abandoned us. [1961]

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, Ispent seventeen months waiting in prison queues inLeningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never inher life heard my name. Jolted out of the torporcharacteristic of all of us, she said into my ear(everyone whispered...